


A Crime Painted Red

by Setcheti



Series: Barstool AU [2]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Betrayal, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Detective Noir, Episode: s01e28 The City on the Edge of Forever, Gen, Organized Crime, Past Violence, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 15:18:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3815275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As luck would have it, that night I just couldn’t sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crime Painted Red

**Author's Note:**

> Please do mind the warnings if you're easily triggered - this story starts off with a nearly-successful suicide attempt and non-graphically references kidnapping, murder, betrayal, substance abuse, and mutilation.

As luck would have it, that night I just couldn’t sleep. 

I was just walkin’ the streets and thinking about nothing much at all when I noticed the light on in the back of the bar.  There was a different sign up above the door, a shiny flashy thing with a name on it I couldn’t even pronounce, and it bein’ about three a.m. I was surprised it was still there…and then I remembered something I’d heard a little while back, that Ms. Maude had brought the law in to keep Ez from changing the sign.  Larabee had been busy helping me duck out on Eli Joe and the teamsters and I don’t know where Sanchez had gotten off to, but from what I heard no one else was bothered too much to help Ez out of his trouble and so his mother had won that round.  I also heard that Jackson stood around on the sidewalk with the rest of the riffraff and laughed to see the police drag Ezra off to jail, but then you hear a lot of things when you’ve been gone for a while and I never did care enough about talking to Jackson to hunt him down and find out for sure.  Most likely whatever answer he would have given me would have earned him a punch in the mouth, and he just wasn’t worth the sore knuckles. 

So anyway, I decided to go check things out and make sure Ez was okay, and when I got close I saw that over that fancy shiny sign someone in a hurry had slapped on paint that said Roxy’s.  It was red paint, and the way it had run all over the place made it look like the sign was bleeding - and maybe to Ezra that was how it felt to see some fancy-shmancy name up there instead of his wife’s.  But it gave me a bad feeling all the same, because it wasn’t like Ez to do something like that.  And when I dodged the falling paint to knock on the door it just swung open, unlocked.  So I felt for my gun and eased my way inside… 

…and then forgot the gun and ran to the bar to grab the body hanging from the noose hooked to the ceiling.  He was still swinging and I figured he must have pushed off just before I showed up.  He was as limp as a rag doll and it took some doing for me to get him down, but lucky for Ez there’s a trick to hanging yourself and he hadn’t known it because he was still breathing and his neck wasn’t broken.  I just laid him down on the floor there by the bar and listened to him wheeze for a few minutes while some of his color came back, and then I stood up and had a look around.  Sure enough, there was a note tacked to the top of the bar next to a little white box, and what I read on it made my blood run cold; guess I was right about the bleeding sign after all.  Damn Maude, and damn all the people around here who should have backed him up – and damn me too for having gone to ground right when he needed a friend most. 

I was damn well here now, though.  And I’d have to say that right now he needed me even more. 

I got the noose down and stuck it away where I was sure no one would find it; I’d burn it later, but right now there wasn’t time for that.  Suicide is against the law, you see, and Larabee and the boys might be in my corner when push came to shove but it wasn’t a sure thing that they’d look the other way where Ezra was concerned and I figured right now he had enough problems.  The note and the box went in my pocket and the tack went back in the cork, and then I hefted Ez up over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carted him upstairs to his room.  I had to kick the door open, but it wasn’t locked either so I just scuffed up the wood a little. 

His room gave me another chill; it was as clean as a whistle and everything he owned was stacked up neat as you please and labeled to be given away, even his clothes.  One suit was laid out on the bed with another note pinned to it that said he was married in it and wanted to be buried in it, and I shoved it off onto the floor to put him down.  Then I took it to his closet and hung it up and shut the door, putting that note with the other one.  There was still one piece of evidence that needed to go, though, and I wasn’t sure I should leave him alone to take care of it – but I sure as hell couldn’t leave it up there, either.  I finally figured that he was still out cold enough for me to run back downstairs and yank down that bleeding sign from over the door, and once I got done taking out my feelings on it in the alley there wasn’t a piece left bigger than my hand.  The paint that had dripped would have to wait for morning, but I’d get that too or make someone else do it. 

Back upstairs Ez still hadn’t moved an inch and I was glad, hadn’t wanted him to come out of it all alone in that spit-shined room with his last memory being hanging from a rope over the bar.  Come to think of it, I didn’t really want him to come out of it with me here and all his stuff sitting out like it was either, so while I waited I pulled the labels off everything and put it all away as best I could.  Probably wasn’t the way he’d had it, but at least the room looked pretty much normal again – enough to fool anyone else who got in, anyway.  The labels got torn up small and dumped in his wastepaper basket, so except for what was in my pocket there wasn’t any evidence left of what he’d tried to do. 

Well, except for the rope burn around his neck, that is.  I thought fast, then made another run downstairs to get some things just in case.  It sure was a good thing I’d trusted my gut, because it wasn’t a quarter of an hour later that I heard big heavy feet coming up the back stairs and Josiah’s big deep voice calling Ezra’s name.  He sounded kind of panicked and I figured that wherever he’d been he must’ve just got back and seen the missing sign and what was left of the dripped paint.  So I went to the door of Ez’s room and played it up, shushed him hard enough to scare him some more, then shoved the bowl of cold water I’d just brought up into his hands and told him I needed more hot. 

And damned if he didn’t figure it out anyway the minute he walked back into the room.  He took one look and kind of froze on me for a minute, then he gives me this suspicious look like he’s not sure which way I plan to jump.  “Where is it?” he asks. 

I started to play dumb, but I knew what he was talking about and he knew I knew, so I went over to the hook I’d hung my coat on and pulled out the two notes and the white box.  I held them where he could see them but I wasn’t ready to hand them over just yet.  “What’s it to you?” 

He looked like he might want to get mad at me, but then he dropped it all at once.  “You know what’s in that box, Tanner?” 

I didn’t, but him asking made me look at it a little closer; that’s when I noticed the cardboard had been sealed with wax and the box top was sealed on the same way.  That didn’t sit too right with me for a minute, but then I figured it out and even though I’ve been around more than some it kind of gave me a shake to know what I’d been luggin’ around with me.  Josiah didn’t make a move to take it from me, he most likely didn’t want to touch it either.  “It goes in the top drawer of his nightstand,” he said real quiet.  “Might as well put it back.  I’d like to read that note, though, before we burn it.” 

Now that was what I wanted to hear.  I handed over the two notes and tucked the box back where it was supposed to go.  Couldn’t quite stop myself from wiping my hands on my pants when I was done.  “I’m guessin’ the cops think that little piece of evidence got lost along the way, don’t they.” 

“They think he buried it with the rest,” Josiah grunted.  He looked at that note one more time, almost like he was memorizin’ it for later, and then he walks over to the wastepaper basket.  “You have a match, brother?” 

Now I don’t smoke – can’t afford to, for one thing, never did much care for the taste for the other – but I’ve found it pays to have a couple packs of matches stashed around, if for no other reason than so you have something to write on.  I fished one out for him and stood and watched him burn those notes to a cinder, then we dumped a little water into the bottom of the basket to make sure we hadn’t caused a bigger problem with the cinders that were left.  Once that was taken care of, though, I decided it was time to start moving fast again; we were going to have to outrun the sun to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, and even with an extra pair of hands it was going to be a close shave.  “Josiah, I’m going to stay here with Ezra.  I want you to run down and get Doc McCoy and bring him back here before we set to work on that paint.” 

He nodded but I didn’t like the look in his eyes.  “He needs tending, I agree.  But I know Brother Nathan is home…” 

“‘Brother Nathan’ ain’t no doctor,” I snapped.  Jackson and Sanchez are friends, but that didn’t cut any ice with me right now.  “Doc McCoy knows how and when to keep his mouth shut and we can’t afford any slips; or did you forget that now the both of us are in this almost as deep as Ezra?”  I reached out and flicked a little piece of ash off the front of his shirt and saw that he got my meaning loud and clear.  “Now take off, we’ve got two hours if that and that damned paint is getting harder by the minute.” 

He tried to out-stare me and found out he couldn’t, so he took off like I’d told him to; it had occurred to me that he might run to Jackson anyway, but I didn’t think he was really that stupid.  I sat back down on the chair I’d pulled up next to the bed and wrung out a cloth in the warm water before laying it across the red line where the rope had burned Ez’s neck.  It wasn’t bleeding except a little bit on one side, and with any luck he wouldn’t end up having to hide a scar for the rest of his life. 

It was about five minutes later that he started to move around a little, but he didn’t start to moan until I saw him try to swallow.  “Don’t do that again if you can help it,” I told him in a low voice, not wanting to startle him any.  I had a cup with some cool water ready and gave him a few sips, and he started to look a little less pained.  “Doc McCoy is coming, Ez, he’ll get you fixed up right as rain.” 

He blinked at me, but I couldn’t tell from his look if he was agreeing or if he just didn’t care so I let it be and gave him some more water.  “Sanchez is back,” I told him while he drank.  “Him ‘n me, we put things back right so you won’t have any trouble from the boys in blue.” 

Okay, now _this_ look I could read and I wished I couldn’t.  “Or the boys in white?” he rasped. 

“You really think we’d hand you over to the laughing academy?” I asked him.  “Damn, Standish, just because I wasn’t here to help you out doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been with bells on if I’d known what was going down.  Sanchez and I will be getting rid of that red paint on the sidewalk just as soon as he gets back, you aren’t gonna have any problems from this if we can help it, understand?” 

He blinked at me again, then looked away; his hand went up to his throat.  “I’m…surprised you are even…willing to speak with me.  Surely my…display of cowardice…” 

“Now you hold it right there!”  I wasn’t really mad, not at him, but I couldn’t let him hang onto that one.  “A man can only take so much, and God knows you’ve had more than your fair share this round.  And you know me; if I thought you were a coward I would have just let you dangle.” 

That shocked him, but then part of the shadow cleared out of his eyes.  “Thank you.” 

“Quit talking,” I scolded.  “You don’t thank someone for cuttin’ a noose down from the ceiling except by promising not to make them do it again, got it?”  His eyes widened and he started to say something, but a sharp look from me and he shut his mouth and just nodded.  “Good.  As long as we’re clear on that, you and me are okay.” 

I heard footsteps, two sets of them, on the stairs then, and since only one of them was heavy I knew Sanchez had used his gray matter and not stopped off at Jackson’s – McCoy is about my size. 

Now old Doc McCoy is an odd duck and no mistake.  He showed up downtown at one of the shelters a few years back, sick and out of his head, and about a week later some friends of his caught up with him there.  Word is that one of them fell head over heels with the woman that ran the shelter and the two of them hitched it up together and are off doing the family thing someplace, but McCoy and the other guy stuck around like they had no other place to go and they’re still here.  You don’t see too much of his roommate, but I’d say it’s a fair bet the man stuck around to be the doc’s keeper; McCoy’s carryin’ something around with him, see, the biggest damned load of guilt I’ve ever seen a man try to haul, and a lot of the time he tries to lighten it up by wetting it down, if you know what I mean.  He’s a great doc and a fair headshrinker when he’s not potted, though, and if anyone can manage to fix Ez inside and out it’ll be him. 

He came in with Sanchez behind him and his bag in his hand, and he spared me a nod before going straight to Ez and looking  him dead in the eye.  He just stood there like that for a minute, and then he sat down on the side of the bed and lifted up that warm rag I’d put across the rope burn, and he shook his head.  “I think this boy is comin’ down with pneumonia,” he said in his raspy voice and just like he meant it.  “Must’ve been that couple of days he spent in jail, damn place is as damp as fresh tomb.  Got into your throat, too, hasn’t it?  Don’t answer that, son, you don’t need to be doin’ any talking for a few days.”  He looked up at me and Sanchez.  “You two gonna look out for him while he’s gettin’ over this?” 

“Don’t think either of us would be leaving with him under the weather,” I said.  “Sanchez and I aren’t going anyplace, Doc.” 

“Glad to hear it.”  He meant that too.  “I can give him some medicine, but as far as beatin’ this thing the old ways are still the most effective,” he told us.  “He’s got to stay in bed a week, warm and covered, especially his throat.  What you’re doing here is good, but I want him in flannel pajamas buttoned up to his neck and on a soft diet.”  His blue eyes were sharp, but they got sharper all of a sudden.  “He’s out of his head with it right now, could’ve done anything, and he’ll likely be in and out for a few days more.  Don’t let anyone visit him if you want him to get better, understand?  I’ll get him settled and do my part of things right now, so why don’t you two go down and clean up that mess; he was out of his head and not responsible when it happened, but if it stays there there’s gonna be excitement and I don’t want any excitement coming into this room for a while if we can help it.  Now get to it, come back up when you’re done and I’ll give you some more instructions.” 

We got to it.  I hadn’t intended to do any of the scrubbing myself if I could get out of it, but I knew Doc McCoy wanted to have his own private talk with Ez, shrink his head a little, and he couldn’t do that with me hanging around – that, and even though Sanchez could talk off a tin ear he can’t lie to save his life, so if we wanted to pull this scam off I’d be needing to stick close to him for a while and do his talking until I was sure he knew how to answer a question.  So I shucked my coat and stood on a chair to scrub that bloody paint off from over the door while Sanchez got down on his hands and knees to scrub it up off the sidewalk.  When I got down to get the drips off the door I asked him, “Where the hell were you?” 

“I had to go see someone who was…sick.”  He didn’t sound too sure about it, though.  “I could ask you the same question.” 

“I was on the run,” I told him flatly.  He wasn’t getting out of it that easily, no sir.  “I find out you knew about his mother and the cops, Sanchez, and you’d better not walk down any more dark alleys in this city for as long as you live.”  It’s got to be kind of a joke around the neighborhood that the poor sap is carrying a torch for Ezra’s mother, and once in a while when she comes around she gives him just enough attention to keep him going, keep her son guessing which side his bouncer will come down on if push comes to shove.  But if I get wise to the idea that he knew more about this than he should I’ll beat his head in – even if I have to stand on a ladder to do it. 

He had to look up at me to figure out what he thought about that one, and what he saw was the truth so he shrugged it off.  “I wouldn’t have done that to him and you should know it.” 

I took his shrug and shot it back at him before I went back to scrubbing paint.  “I know you’ve got the hots for his mother is what I know, and I know they’ve got a snake down at the zoo that’s more of a lady than she is.”  He really didn’t like that but he didn’t try to argue with me either, which makes me wonder if he’s an even bigger sap than I thought; bad enough to get sucked in by a pretty face and a swish, but it’s even worse to just keep making a fool of yourself over a woman you _know_ is playing you.  I don’t care enough about it to ask him, though, and I figure if he really was that dumb then cleaning up this mess might have wised him up some.         

And I’m not just talking about the damned red paint we’re scrubbing, either. 

We get done with the paint not too long before the sun would have put a spotlight on it and scoot back inside, making sure everything is right in its place and not a hair out of it.  Doc McCoy is waiting for us, but Ez is asleep and the doc takes us outside into the hall to keep him that way.  “He’s got it bad,” is what he says once the door is mostly shut.  “For the next day or two we can’t leave him alone for a minute, you understand?  Not even when he’s asleep.” 

I just nod, since I hadn’t figured on leaving Ez on his own for a while anyway; no matter what little bit of sense I got into him when he first woke up, a man who gets up enough nerve to take himself out ain’t gonna lose it all at once – especially not when you add embarrassment to whatever load he was trying to dump.  “Anything else?” I ask. 

McCoy doesn’t quite smile.  “If I think of anything, you’ll be the first to know,” he tells me, then fixes a cold blue eye on Sanchez.  “And no preaching at him from you, Mr. Sanchez, and I mean it.  What ails that boy can’t be fixed with a sermon, and what’s inside his head already is so screwed up that I don’t need you poking around in there and making it worse.” 

Sanchez frowns.  “But Brother, religion can be a comfort…” 

“Only if the recipient is willing and able – which my patient isn’t, so I’ll thank you to save any preachin’ you feel you have to do until the next time the Salvation Army comes rollin’ by.”  The cold look heated up when he saw Sanchez wasn’t buying it.  “The only thing that boy needs to be saved from right now is the evil other people do, and you won’t get that fixed by telling him some higher power is behind it all but loves his poor worthless self all the same.  Not unless you want him back on the end of a rope somewhere down the road, anyway.  Do we understand each other?” 

There just wasn’t anything Sanchez could say to that except yes, and I kept my smile to myself until he went downstairs to get things ready for business.  Then I took off my coat and settled in with McCoy to play some cards until Ez woke up again. 

 

It was a few days before I felt all right about leavin’ Ez, but after a few days I knew I was going to have to go pound the pavement for a while if I wanted to keep playing penny-ante with the doc, not to mention that I’d come up with something else that needed doing and it couldn’t wait.  Or at least, I couldn’t.  So I waited until McCoy showed up for his daily head-shrink with Ez, saw that the replacement bartender was where he was supposed to be and Sanchez wasn’t doing anything he shouldn’t, and then I took off with a plan to show up in the wrong place at the right time so I could arrange a little run-in with the wrong people. 

The good end of town around here is a pretty bad place to be if you’re not either Family or just nobody, and especially if the Carlucci’s know you as someone they wouldn’t miss all that much if you were to, say, take a walk off the pier wearing concrete galoshes – and I knew there were a couple of boys hanging around the organization who’d be more than happy to fit me for a pair, too.  But this was for Ez, so I got uptown and found a good spot in a little Italian place I shouldn’t have been showing my face in, ordered some coffee and cannolli and waited.  Sure enough, I was just down to the bottom of my cup when one of the wrong people I’d been hoping to see walked in:  Tony Carlucci, one of the big don’s lieutenants – and one of his favorite grandsons to boot.  Perfect.  I waited until he’d gotten settled in, then waited a minute more until he decided what to do about me being there where I didn’t belong.  It didn’t take long.  “Thought you knew better than to slouch around down here, Tanner,” he said.  “You private dicks don’t last too long in this part of town.” 

“Oh, I’m not here to work.”  I finished my coffee, paid for the cannolli and told Luigi’s daughter to tell him it was great – which it had been.  Then I moseyed over to Tony’s table and sort of lounged there, looking down at him.  “I just wanted to see what I’d been hearing about, you know how it goes.  And here you are, large as life.” 

He didn’t quite know what to make of that, so he did a good job of acting like I was a fly he was too bored to swat.  “You got somethin’ to say, Tanner, spit it out.  You’re botherin’ me.” 

Tony Carlucci isn’t too bad of a guy in a regular situation, but this setup wasn’t regular and I knew I had to appeal to his Family pride if I wanted him to jump in the right place without him thinking he was doing me any kind of a favor – favors from a Carlucci I don’t need, I’ve got enough problems.  I slid into the seat across from him and made myself more at home than I felt.  “Okay, Tony, I’ll give it to you straight; you boys screwed up and out of the goodness of my heart I figured I’d point it out to you before any more people started to laugh.” 

That perked him right up.  “Who’s laughin’?” he wanted to know.  “Ain’t nobody laughs at Tony Carlucci…” 

“Not just you, all of you,” I corrected like it was no big deal.  “You boys screwed that Standish deal all to hell, you know that?  That’s what you get for not checking your facts before you ice somebody; that gold-plated bitch you were trying to shake down used you to get rid of Roxy Standish so she wouldn’t get her own hands dirty with it, and now she’s playing you against the cops to run her son out of town if not straight into the laughing academy or a hole in the ground.  Since when do you guys dance to someone else’s tune, Tony?” 

I waved that red blanket in front of him and damned if he didn’t charge right after it, just like I wanted him to.  “The Carlucci family don’t do no one else’s dirty work,” he snapped, coloring up.  “I should take you out just for suggestin’ that someone could play us.” 

I leaned forward and lowered my voice, keeping it just us.  “Somebody _did_ , you dumb sap.  You made an honest mistake, though, I’ll give you that; most people wouldn’t suspect that a woman’s life ambition would be to take out her own son.” 

He’s a little slow on the uptake, Tony is, but I was using words he could understand and he finally caught on.  “That Maude woman is out to get her own kid?”  He sounded horrified and he most likely was; he’s old school and they don’t play things that way around here.  “You sure about this, Tanner?” 

“Wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t,” I told him.  “She used her connections with you to steal that bar out from under him, and now she’s using the shadow Roxy’s murder left on him with the cops to rub his nose in it – she had him hauled off to jail for three days after their last game of change the sign, made a fool of him and then he got sick from being in the tank on top of all of it.” 

“Sick?”  He gave me a look; Tony had all four cylinders firing now.  And no matter how fast we’d made that red paint disappear, there would have been people who’d seen it.  “Been out of his head?” 

I nodded.  “Yep, that’s what the doc says.”  I gave him a look of my own.  “We’ve been keeping him up in his room, he can’t hardly talk with his throat all swollen up like it is.” 

“Probably best if he stays out of the bar until that clears up, yeah.”  His eyes had narrowed.  “Doc McCoy looking out for him, is it?  He say Standish will get better?” 

“Yeah, he says he should be okay – as long as he doesn’t do any more painting at night or spend any more time in the lockup, anyway.”  I stood up.  “Well, I’d better get going.  You’ve got things to do and so do I.” 

“That I do,” he agreed seriously.  “See you around, Tanner.”  He didn’t offer me his hand and I wouldn’t have taken it if he had, so a nod did for both of us and I went on back to Roxy’s.  

The place was empty when I got there except for the fill-in bartender.  “Doc upstairs with Ez?” I asked him, sitting down in my usual spot. 

He nodded but kept on cleaning glasses.  “Dr. McCoy says Mr. Standish is much improved,” he told me.  “Your errand was successful?” 

I didn’t ask myself how he knew what I’d been up to, he’s just spooky that way and I wasn’t going to drive myself off a cliff trying to figure him out.  “Yep,” I said.  “Everything should be right as rain soon.” 

“Good.  Mr. Standish is very fortunate to have such a good friend.”  He meant it, I could tell, but there was just a touch of bitterness coloring his deep voice that made me wonder who hadn’t been a good friend to him somewhere back down the line.  It wasn’t McCoy, I knew that, but it could have been that buddy of theirs that took off.  That could be it, I guessed, especially if he’d had something to do with this guy getting messed up; he wears his hair long to cover the scars, but if that had been an accident the top of his head would be missing and not just the tops of his ears.  I never dug into it because I’d always had a gut feeling I shouldn’t, but I’ve wondered a few times if the ‘Jim’ McCoy mentions when he’s drunk sometimes was messed up with the mob or something.  I hoped not; there’s just too damn much of that going around right now, we don’t need any more. 

 

I was back on my stool and McCoy was sitting next to me drinking coffee when Larabee came in looking like he didn’t know which way was up the next day.  He marched right to the stairs and wasn’t too happy when I got in his way.  “Doc says…” I began. 

“I have to talk to him,” he interrupted.  I narrowed my eyes.  He was steamed, yeah, but I got the feeling it wasn’t Ez who had him heated up this time.  “You can come with me, but I have to talk to him and it can’t wait.”

McCoy peeled himself off his stool and ambled over.  “All right,” he said, surprising me and Larabee both.  “We’ll all go, then.  But if you light into him I’ll throw you down the stairs.” 

Larabee nodded agreement, and the doc led us both upstairs and knocked softly on Ez’s door before opening it.  “Ezra, you’ve got some company,” he said, sticking his head in.  “You feel up to it?  I think it’s someone you should see.” 

It was obviously okay, because McCoy stepped into the room and let us both in behind him.  Ez was sitting up in bed staring out the window, the flannel wrapped around his neck making him look paler than he should be, and when he turned his head and saw who was with us his eyes got so round and frightened that I wanted to shove the detective out of the room myself.  For Larabee’s part, he looked more than a little shocked to see Ez looking so worn down, but what surprised me more was that he looked guilty as well.  “Standish, I…” he began, and then cleared his throat and started again.  “There’s something I need to say to you.” 

For the first time – well, okay, the second time – since I’d met him at that Fourth Avenue riot, Larabee looked not so sure of himself.  And that worried me, especially since that little ‘chat’ I’d had with Tony downtown.  When he finally opened his mouth, though, what came out almost knocked me back on my heels.  “I owe you an apology, Standish,” he said.  “We…one of the beat cops hauled in Crazy Eddie a couple of hours ago, and he’s been singing like a canary ever since.” 

Crazy Eddie is a cousin to Tony and a hophead to boot, and his only saving grace is that unlike most other hopheads I’ve seen instead of turning him into a rabid dog the weed just makes him silly.  Eddie goes way beyond a Family embarrassment, but they can’t ice him even though when he’s all hopped up he’ll tell you everything he ever knew and then some – rumor has it the old man owed Eddie’s mother a favor and her little hophead’s continued existence was it.  “So just what kind of song was he singing today?” I asked. 

Larabee snorted.  “All of them – he must’ve got a whole sackful of the stuff somewhere, we finally had to gag him to shut him up.  But that was before he started singing about…Standish, do you know where your mother is right now?” 

Ez flinched, and McCoy moved right in.  “Detective, that subject is upsetting to my patient.” 

“I know, I’m sorry.  But it’s important that we find out.”  He scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking frustrated.  “It sounded like Eddie’d been sitting in a corner somewhere while some of his cousins were having a chat about…well, about Miss Maude and how they’d figured out that she used them to get,” he shot a sideways look at McCoy, “something she wanted done, a couple of somethings, even.  We got the idea that they feel like she was playing them, and the next time she sets foot in the city will most likely be the last time she sets foot anywhere.  And they know she’ll come back over that damned sign.” 

Guess I’d only thought Ez was pale before; a piece of paper would have looked colored next to him right then.  But he finally opened his mouth.  “I don’t know where she is, Detective.”  He couldn’t have sounded worse if he really did have pneumonia, sort of like someone had roughed up his vocal cords with sandpaper.  “The last time she was here…I was not here when she left.”  

Larabee actually winced, and before McCoy or I could move he’d sat himself down next to the man he’d tried to bulldog so many times and put a hand on his shoulder.  “Dammit, Standish, I am so sorry – about everything that’s gone on, I mean it.  I swear to you that I will fix this mess we’ve made, even if what it takes is me repainting that damned sign for you myself.”  Ez couldn’t quite manage to get out an answer to that, even though his mouth was working like a landed fish down at the pier, but he managed a little nod and Larabee patted his shoulder before standing back up.  “You rest up, get better – place isn’t the same without you.”  He winked.  “And don’t tell anyone, but that new bartender of yours gives me the willies.” 

McCoy snorted and sat down in the chair beside the bed – his way of saying that he was staying there and we were leaving.  “He does that on purpose.  He doesn’t like you.” 

Larabee looked him straight in the eye.  “Well, that makes two of us, then.” 

I let them stare each other down until McCoy nodded, then I found a smile for Ez and followed Larabee out.  I guess I wasn’t too surprised when he stopped walking halfway to the stairs.  “You burn that rope?” he asked. 

I just looked at him, and he shook his head; he hadn’t really expected me to come clean with him.  “I’m not going to say word one about it, Tanner, you don’t have to worry about that.”  He tugged at his collar.  “Buck burned mine.” 

Somehow that didn’t surprise me.  I still wasn’t giving him anything, though; he was feeling guilty today, but down the road he might not stay that way.  Something I needed to fish for myself, though…  “So what else did Crazy Eddie give you boys?  Anything I need to know about?” 

His eyes narrowed just a little while he sorted out what I wasn’t asking him and what it probably meant, and then he shrugged.  “Not that I know of, no – although he’s probably still singing away if he managed to get the gag out.  If he mentions anything to do with your business, I’ll pass it along. ”  He started to say something else, then swallowed it and started walking again.  “You’re sure there’s no connection?” 

Someone else might have thought that road had been awful short when he asked me that question, but I know him better than that; Larabee’s got the record he does because he checks out every little detail, which is why he’s so guilty now that he knows he let himself slip up when it came to the Standish case.  And he knows he can’t ask me straight out how much I had to do with him finding that out, so he’ll ask me a question he knows I can answer.  I shrug, knowing he’s watching me out of the corner of his eye.  “You think I’d run my business out of his bar if there was?  You ought to be more worried about me telling the bartender what you said about him giving you the willies.” 

He stops again at the top of the stairs and looks back.  “You wouldn’t.” 

I grin at him.  “Buy me a beer or two and I’ll forget I ever heard it – and I’ll run interference so he doesn’t look at you too hard.” 

He starts downstairs again, and I hear him chuckle.  It’s a little forced, but it probably will be for a while; Larabee’s not used to being on the receiving end of wrong, it’s usually him forcing it down someone else’s throat.  “Blackmail’s a crime, Tanner.  But I might be persuaded to look the other way if you’d fill me in on what’s been going on with Roxy’s all this time I’ve had my head up my ass.  Over _one_ beer, just to keep your mouth from drying out.” 

“Sounds like a deal to me.”  Making a joke about him being on the take isn’t something I’m stupid enough to do; that’s the kind of thing that gets overheard and causes trouble, and that kind of trouble is no joke at all.  And I know for a fact that the bartender has ears like a bat and just heard every word we said. 

Including the part about him giving big bad Detective Larabee the willies.


End file.
